IT World Canada’s Executive Development Series, brought to you by IBM provided a “studious” perspective on the multi-faceted issues of IT leadership.
The series features the views and insights of professors from the University of Waterloo’s Department of Management Sciences who, through an ongoing series of features authored by IT World Canada editor Greg Enright, discuss eight topical issues. The series provides a unique perspective and brings a fresh approach to strategic IT issues.
The entire series is available at: http://www.itworldcanada.com/leadership
Here’s a synopsis of the stories that were featured.
IT and Business Alignment
IT is increasingly being called upon to steer strategic thinking. Aligning IT with the needs and requirements larger business has become one of this decade’s most pressing — and daunting — challenges for organizations of all sizes. Professor Rod McNaughton, Eyton Chair in Entrepreneurship, says the primary role of IT departments has moved well beyond that of merely providing internal support services to businesses. Today, it’s all about IT professionals able to see opportunities for great new customer services, he says. “The issue is about how IT starts to transform the organization and the way business models work." - Rod McNaughton
The next breed of IT managers and executives are being educated in both IT and management skills. Likewise, many companies are realigning to create a more fluid connection between all aspects of business and IT, recognizing the importance and need to synergize and not allow IT to work in isolation.
“The issue is about how IT starts to transform the organization and the way business models work, as opposed to simply making something cheaper or faster or more efficient,” McNaughton says.
Change Management
Change is never a comfortable or easy thing. Modern corporations face many more obstacles — and opportunities — that foist change upon them. Managing the deployment of new technologies that allows companies to achieve greater efficiency and competitiveness, and also take full advantage of new business opportunities presents many IT departments with a paradox. Deploying them, educating users about them, and ensuring these run effectively creates more and more responsibility for already overburdened IT professionals in business. But it’s also an opportunity for IT departments to move further into the waters of business success and be a more relevant and strategic part of the company.
But change isn’t just about the impact of new applications and IT-enabled business functions. In an ever-consolidating world, the merging and acquiring of companies sees individual IT department joining ranks to become larger wholes. Successfully blending disparate people and organizational traditions into an ultimately changed new and cooperative culture may be the greatest of all change management challenges.
Project Management
It’s become an increasingly difficult “art” for IT professionals to bring in projects on time and on budget. It’s an already big problem that’s only getting bigger.
Professor Peter Carr says the need for more effective project management in IT departments and professionals will become an even greater imperative in the years ahead.
Projects are get bigger, more complex and costlier, he says. And the amount they cost and the time they take to complete is likewise growing. A project manager often applies “tough love” in managing through project tasks, but ultimate success hinges on the effective use of “soft skills,” Carr says, and quite frequently project managers aren’t taught these when they’re initially trained.
The key message: Never lose sight of the importance of managing relationships throughout the process.
Collaboration
Western nations can learn a great deal from countries in the Far East, when it comes to successful collaboration.
“One of the big things with [Japan] is how they collaborate with their manufacturers and suppliers,” says Carr. “And one of the things we’ve learned…is the idea that we have a smaller number of suppliers and we work more closely with them and we form longer-term relationships. What that’s based on is sharing more information together to improve how the whole supply chain works.”
There is plenty of IT tools available, designed to let people work in more collaborative ways. IT departments have an important part in driving collaboration throughout their organizations through the management and support of collaboration tools. But they’re also instrumental in helping business users realize the full function potential and value in these tools that enable information sharing and teamwork.
Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship and Innovation
Many organizations today are looking to infuse their already successful operations with more small-business feistiness and an increased willingness to take risks.
Professor Moren Lévesque says younger employees want to have freedom and creativity in their jobs – the ability to think outside the box and work in an unrestricted manner.
Does IT have a part to play in fostering a spirit of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and innovation? Does the freewheeling nature of the new/next-generation of employees run counter to the essential need by IT departments to manage and control the computing environment? Will IT departments be able to mitigate and manage the risk of employees who seek to extend and exceed the boundaries of business IT?
Managing Partner Relationships
Partnership is a word with a lot more bark than bite. It seems easy enough to establish a partnership but achieving success and value from alliances can be difficult. PhD student Rakinder Sembhi states the obvious by suggesting that the first question a company’s executives must ask before going down the path is: why do we want to partner in the first place? Managing the relationship is the key.
Once the decision to partner is made, firms must work to manage the relationship in order to achieve success by, among other things, ensuring that expectations are clearly mapped out before anything gets off the ground. Decision makers must be realistic about what can and can’t be carried out, Sembhi says.
“One of the key things is to look for people who have been on both sides of the fence in other places and have done [the particular type of work] well. Because this whole concept of vendor relationship management is such a people-intensive process, you’re only as good as the people you bring in.
Someone who has that personality — the ability to get along with other people — those people can excel in these types of situations.”
Global Markets and Trends
IT has become the essential fabric of successful business globalization.
Professor James Bookbinder notes that the further away business is happening, the more important it is to have good information.
More efficient communication networks have allowed firms to move some operations to far-off locations, such as India and China – in many cases reducing production costs due to advantageous economic conditions and cheaper labour. But distance creates entirely new challenges that perhaps weren’t there before.
Ethics and Governance
Questions around what represents right and wrong behaviour arise nearly every day for most CXOs. The answers will ultimately determine a firm’s identity and the degree to which it succeeds or fails.
Ethical behavior needs to be applied throughout and wi